“Bless you both.” Father Gabriel’s voice flowed like calm waters through a rushing river. “Wherever your journey takes you, go with God.”

Standing in the partially concealed doorway of the illicit chapel, I clutched Jean’s hand as though my very life depended on it.

Jean kept his voice low. “Thank you, Father. Our final destination is France. Calais.”

I listened attentively.

Jean had a plan of escape for us all along.

“But first we must reach the coast, then find a ferryman willing to smuggle us the 26 miles across the Strait of Dover.”

Before the bloodhounds reach us.

Father Gabriel reached into a decrepit wooden box affixed to the stone wall. “Take this. To help you and your wife on your journey to freedom.” Something jingled as he passed the gift to Jean.

“Father,” Jean exclaimed. “This is five crowns! We cannot accept—”

The old priest held up a hand. It shook with tremors. “That comes from the poor box. No one here now is poorer than the pair of you.” He offered a crooked smile.

Still, Jean protested. “But, should we be captured and the money traced back to you—”

“Stuff and nonsense. Should the King wish me dead, I would be so. But it will be my faith for which I die, as I give you this gift in Christian charity. It will not be your fault.”

Father Gabriel patted Jean, whose handsome face contorted into a look of worry. “You forget I know better than any how your conscience plagues you Jean St. Bromaine. Now go, before you too run out of time.” He paused at the doorway. “And please, take the pair of white horses that came to me only this evening. You must make Dover tonight.”

The Royal Forest

The Escape

“T

ell me Bridget my dear.” Jean spoke in low tones as the branches whipped across our faces in stinging swats. Night bugs buzzed about, some biting at our exposed flesh while others flickered harmlessly as they added what flashes of light they could to our nighttime escape. “When you were a girl, did you fancy fleeing merry ole England on the very night of your honeymoon?”

I thought back to when I was a girl at Throckenholt Priory. Skipping along the hand-laid stones, placed there by martyred monks. Burdened by a heavy guilt for being happy. For being alive. All simply by hiding my true faith—the faith of my mother—whilst living among Protestants.

Elizabeth and I had pondered often over love and marriage as young girls do, dreaming of royal weddings trimmed in purple and gold, a slave to our hearts as we gave them to only the most handsome and most rich of our suitors. All royal or of noble birth, of course.

Love? Lady Denny would scold us as though the very word was wretched on her tongue. There cannot be love in a marriage. Love thy King, your most sovereign prince, above all. As he is the head of the Church of England and the whole of this island.

Still, I dared to dream.

“Quite honestly Jean, no. I did no such thing.” My words were quick and breathless. Jean slowed our horses’ pace. “I never dreamt of a honeymoon at all, really. Lest my aunt, Lady Denny, were able to secure me to some fat, houndish groomsman for a handsome dowry price. However, that would leave me loveless, with 15 children and rotten with syphilis. All the while, my fat husband would be in the arms of his mistress, begetting bastards, and I alone with my royal misery.”

Jean glanced over his shoulder. The light of laughter brightened his eyes despite the deep darkness of the forest. “It appears to me that you know the goings on at Court far too intimately.”

The weight about my shoulders lightened. “Perhaps so.”

The sound of crashing waves met my ears, and heavy air, thick and fresh with salt, enveloped me. My eyes fluttered open. I must have fallen asleep. Still, darkness surrounded me and I was strangely disoriented. “Jean?”

I mustn’t have slept long.

“Jean?” My sleep-roughened voice croaked like a bullfrog.

A hand was on my knee in an instant. “I’m here, Bridget. Fear not.”

My horse whuffed and stomped his hooves. I stroked his pearlish neck. “Have we made it?”

“We will leave the horses here,” Jean instructed. He ignored my question as his hand skittered up my leg.

That mere touch sent waves of heat to secret places. I accepted his hand and dismounted.

“I have something to show you.”

I let him lead me from the dark forest onto a moonlit beach.

“This is where the ferryman will come in the morning. Had he left his ferry, we could simply steal it and ferry ourselves to freedom. Alas, it seems he bedded down on the shores of France tonight.”

I tried to still my pounding heart, but it was no use. Emotions threatened to send me over an unseen edge. Fear, desire. They mixed and brought a righteous thunder to my chest.

“Like our ferryman, we too shall bed down. Alas, we shall be here, and unbeknownst to him, it’s for him that we will wait.” Jean gestured toward a tinkling waterfall. “Come, Wife. Behold your honeymoon chamber.”

Enchanted, I followed Jean with light steps to the bank of the river that emptied into the sea. Across a small path of stepping stones, slippery under my bare feet, and tucked just behind the curtain of water that fell from the rocky outcropping above, there it was. “Jean,” I exclaimed. “It’s beautiful.”

The moonlight, bright off the sea, reflected through the streams of trickling water like a lantern. Cool moss tickled my feet and promised a good night’s rest. However, with Jean’s hands on my waist and his kisses on my neck, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind.

“Tell me you love it,” he murmured into my hair. “Tell me.”

I turned and let his lips trail up my neck and across the hollow of my throat, until they met mine. Gentle, yet hungry.

“I love this place,” I managed through breathless kisses. “And how could I help but love you?”

With practiced hands, Jean relieved me of the cumbersome dress and lay me back onto the moss. Chill from the frigid floor of the cave crept into me, making me shiver. The look in Jean’s eye told me not to worry and promised that the troublesome chill would soon be extinguished.

Joined in holy union and belonging only to each other, I let Jean lead me through the rocky foothills of pleasure, as only those with the truest of hearts can tread. I’d never dreamed of scaling any of the world’s peaks, but we did so, together, without ever leaving our waterfall chamber.

The swishing of water against wood woke me, though the ray of sun had yet to chase away the darkness of the night. “Jean,” I whispered.

Beneath my hand, his chest rose and fell with each breath. I leaned and pressed my lips to his cheek. “Jean.”

The strong arm I’d been wrapped in all night curled around my waist as my husband rolled to face me, his eyes still closed. He tightened his grip, as though he was grasping a trunk of treasure on a ship that was going down. “Mmm, Bridget.”

“The ferryman, Jean. I think he’s arrived.”

Jean’s eyes opened, and a slow grin spread across his lips. “So soon? Didn’t we just get to sleep?”

I flushed. Indeed, the majority of the night was spent awake, exploring, in each other’s arms. A shiver coursed through my insides as Jean’s fingertips traced a fiery line from my face, down my ribs, and stopped at my naked thigh.

“I suppose I should go barter with the man.” Jean flashed a wink that brought a wanting ache to my core. “Wait here. And I beseech you, get dressed only if you must.”